


In the Past

by andloawhatsit



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Libraries, M/M, Relationship(s), Short One Shot, Trust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-03
Updated: 2016-05-03
Packaged: 2018-06-06 02:40:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6734617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andloawhatsit/pseuds/andloawhatsit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because we are ALL thinking about what Alec and Magnus talked about when they were alone in Camille's library.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Past

“I can explain,” said Magnus, harried, standing first in front of the door to the small reading room they had begun to search, then moving quickly to the side as though to leave Alec a clear escape route. “I know what it looks like, but it's in the past, you—”

“Don’t.” Alec put a hand up to silence him and held it there, an awkward wall between them when he had thought he crashed through every barrier in stepping off the dais and away from Lydia, away from the life of a good shadowhunter, a good son. He had taken a terrifying leap of faith and Magnus had caught him, and surely there could be nothing more to be frightened of, not really, after that. Then his own naïveté had caught him in the face not twenty-four hours later. What was more frightening? He had thought it a rhetorical question, then been handed the answer: seeing Magnus pressed against Camille. But nightmares were one thing, and real life entirely another.

Alec took a deep breath, but Magnus burst in once more, unable to contain himself. Blue sparks gathered and burst in the tips of his hair. “You have to know I didn’t want, didn’t encourage—”

“ _Magnus_ ,” said Alec, using the tone of voice he used on the others when Robert and Maryse left the Institute in his care. Not that they, or anyone else, would do so again any time soon. He’d be lucky to get a clerical post in Antarctica. Well, he’d heard great things about Antarctica, so there, and if the Clave thought it was terrible, then it stood to reason he would love it. He thought so about Magnus, too. “Listen to me and don’t interrupt.”

“But—”

“No,” said Alec. A blue spark jumped between them and set on his cheek like an electric shock, but Magnus quieted at last. “I know we haven’t known each other very long,” said Alec, “and I know we haven’t. Been.” He choked and came up with nothing, so skipped ahead to, “Very long either.”

“Alexander—”

Alec put his hand flat on Magnus’s chest. “But I know you well enough to know that you wouldn’t let me walk away from my own wedding yesterday, then turn around and jump Camille today.”

“Oh,” said Magnus. Alec could see he had surprised him. The warlock’s sparks settled, and he glowed instead with an aura of faint reds and purples; he was relieved, happy.

“I trusted you yesterday,” said Alec. “I trust you today.” And he did, too. After all, nightmares were one thing—and Magnus preferring the beautiful and vicious Camille to him was certainly a nightmare—but real life was entirely another, and in real life, he and Magnus had walked away together, he from the Clave and Magnus from Camille. Alec smiled, then suddenly put a hand to his mouth like he’d been caught doing something embarrassing. Smiling like a dopey mundane _was_ embarrassing. “Besides,” he said, pushing past it, “Camille killed the mund—Simon, and I know you wouldn’t kiss. Anybody who hurt Clary like that. You like her too much.” Alec’s mind filled suddenly with the image of Clary and Jocelyn visiting Magnus on and off for the past two decades, Clary growing up and Magnus staying the same. He didn’t relish the thought.

Magnus caught him by surprise, then, in a tight hug, and pressed his face against Alec’s shoulder. His voice was muffled, but he said, “You are such a gift, Alexander, and you don’t know it.”

Alec blushed, and squirmed in embarrassment. “I’m not, I’m just—”

Magnus looked up, then kissed him. “What I mean,” he said, after, “is that you know I wouldn’t want to hurt Clary, but you _don’t_ know what I’d do to keep from hurting you, namely a hell of a lot. Because you’re worth caring about.”

Alec’s heart thumped in his chest.

“Camille is”—Magnus sighed—“bad news. Capital b, capital n, all caps, bold, underlined. We made each other unhappy a long time ago, only she’d like to keep the game going while it’s taken me two centuries and a lot of cocktails to get over it.”

The warlock said this like a joke, with his usual flair as well as the same pleased purple glow he’d kindled when he’d realized Alec wasn’t hurt, but still Alec could see that Camille had rattled him. “We don’t need her,” he said, more confidently then he felt. “We’ll get the Book of the White, get out of here, and who cares where she ends up?” He nodded, trying to be assertive, encouraging.

“Thank you for trusting me,” said Magnus. He grinned. “That will make it _much_ easier to corrupt you.”

Alec laughed, then closed the gap between them once again and kissed Magnus until he at last pulled away to regretfully insist they search for the Book.

“‘Jump’ Camille?” said Magnus, shuffling a pile of books stacked on an end-table.

Alec dropped the encyclopedia volume he’d been flipping through, blushing again. “I didn’t know what else to say. I was making an impassioned speech. I was—”

“I was teasing,” said Magnus. “Because I care.”

And Alec knew he did.

**Author's Note:**

> Transferred from my Tumblr, andloawhatsit.tumblr.com


End file.
